Washington Wrap
Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker, Beth Lester, Clothilde Ewing and Jamie English of the CBS News Political Unit have the latest from the nation's capital.
Thursday's Headlines
* Kerry and the Lobbyists
* Earth Day Brings Out the Environmentalist in Bush
* MoveOn PAC Plans to Raise Historical Amount of Money
* Money Keeps Coming for Dean
Kerry Releases List of the release of his military records, the Kerry campaign did not waste any time trying to turn the lobbyist meeting list into a political advantage. Kerry campaign spokesman Chad Clanton told the Post, "Now it's the Bush campaign's turn to release the list of oil company lobbyists in Cheney's secret energy task force that rewrote our energy policy." According to the Post, "Bush campaign spokeswoman Nicolle Devenish called that a political ploy." But the Washington Post says "the extraordinary disclosure, which goes well beyond public disclosure laws, was an implicit and strategically timed challenge to Bush to prove that he [Kerry] is not in lobbyists' thrall, as Bush often portrays him."
Bush and Kerry Square Off on Environment: President Bush heads to a Maine nature reserve on Thursday to unveil a plan to protect wetlands and "shore up his environmental record against attacks by Democratic rival John Kerry," the AP reports.
Bush will announce that next year's federal budget would increase funding for wetlands protection and that that loss of U.S. wetlands is down - and is nearing the national goal of "no net loss" of wetlands.
But, the AP reports: "In December, Bush abandoned a plan that could have further reduced wetlands protections by scaling back the Clean Water Act's coverage of isolated ponds and streams, many of them dry for part of the year. His administration also has said that projects no longer have to restore wetlands acre-for-acre if the "no net loss" goal is met for each of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' 38 U.S. districts, which are formed by watersheds and not state boundaries."
For his part, campaigning in Houston on the 30th anniversary of Earth Day, Kerry said of Bush's environmental policies: "In three short years, this president has put the brakes on 30 years of environmental progress."
Both campaigns also duked it out on the surrogate front, with Bush-Cheney sending out a statement from former EPA Commissioner Christine Todd Whitman and the Kerry campaign having a conference call with Democratic former EPA Commissioner Carole Browner and sending an e-mail to supporters from movie star and environmental activist Robert Redford.
Whitman's statement touted the president's environmental record and said "John Kerry's attacks on the President's environmental record ignore the progress that has been made by this Administration."
Redford's e-mail to Kerry backers – accompanied with a snappy headshot – said: "To put it simply, George Bush's environmental policies endanger our health, loot our natural resources, and destroy the possibility of a secure energy future. George Bush may claim his environmental policies promote 'healthy forests' and 'clear skies' but those labels are both disingenuous and false. Most of his initiatives are nothing more than payoffs for wealthy campaign contributors."
MoveOn PAC Announces $50 Million Goal: MoveOn PAC announced plans to raise an unprecedented amount of money to defeat President Bush and elect "progressive candidates." The group plans to raise $50 million in the hopes of reducing the Republican advantage of large contributions from wealthy donors and corporations.
The announcement comes after Saturday's "Bake Back the White House" where 500,000 Americans participated in 1,100 bake sales across the country that raised $750,000. MoveOn PAC Executive Director, Eli Pariser, says, "This is hundreds of thousands of David's against Goliath."
The unprecedented goal of $50 million is the more than the national Democratic Party raised in the past year, and is more than the National Rifle Association and Emily's List raised in the 2002 election cycle combined.
The $50 million dollars will be split three ways, with $10 million being used to support the largest GOTV drive in American history. $20 million will be used for advertising in swing states, and an additional $20 million will be given directly to the Kerry campaign.
Bush campaign director, Ken Mehlman told The Hill Monday, "MoveOn.org is a huge threat and has hurt the president. Every action makes a difference." Some Democratic strategists have told CBS News, however, that some of MoveOn's ads, which work so well to motivate base liberal Democrats, may actually hurt Kerry among swing voters. They may have to take their chances.
Dean Continues to Collect: The Dean campaign received $626,615 last month despite dropping out of the Presidential race in February, reports the AP.
At the end of March the campaign had $2 million in the bank and owed $1.2 million. A filing with the Federal Election Commission this week showed Dean's expenditures to include the following: $202,352 to Fairbanks, Maslin Maulin, a polling firm; $156,359 to Trippi, McMahon and Squier for television advertisements purchased for the campaign; $28,000 to The Dean Team, a consulting firm set up and housed in the same offices as Trippi's firm; and $140,984 to the Syntech Group, a company that helps campaigns prepare FEC reports after receiving contributions.
A reported $57,653 was returned to contributors who asked for their money back. The report also showed the campaign was owed $67,266.
In other Dean news, New York Daily News's Lloyd Grove reports this interesting bit of political gossip about Dean and an alleged offer of a secret deal with Ralph Nader:
"According to pollster Paul Maslin, former strategist to one-time Democratic frontrunner Howard Dean, Nader seemed ready six months ago to cut a secret backroom deal: He would agree not to wage a troublesome third-party campaign (of the sort that denied Al Gore the White House in 2000) if the former Vermont governor would simply agree to pick Nader as his running mate.
"'Nonsense,' Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese told me yesterday. 'Ralph never had any interest in being anyone's vice president, and he has never had any intention of running as a Democrat.'
"But Maslin told me that a day or two after ex-veep Gore endorsed Dean in early December, Nader contacted Dean's headquarters in Burlington, Vt., to announce that he was in town and wanted to drop by.
"Nader arrived with three aides and sat down with Dean operatives Mike Ford, Bob Rogan, Mark Squier and Maslin."
After some small talk about third-party candidates, Grove reports that Nader's aide got down to business: "Then he stopped talking as one of his aides asked: 'Has the governor given any thought to who he will name as a running mate?' Ford responded that it was way too early. After an awkward silence the conversation resumed.
'"It seemed to all of us like a prearranged question,' Maslin said. 'We all thought this was Nader's way of asking to be Dean's running mate - or else. It was carrot and stick. The meeting ended five minutes later. After Nader left, we rolled our eyes.'"
Quote of the Day: "It was Heaven, wonderful, kind, welcoming, fun ... full of eccentrics and desperate people trying to meet five deadlines a day. … I loved it the minute I set foot in it." –columnist Mary McGrory, who passed away on Wednesday after a long illness, talking about The Washington Star. (Washington Post)